UF Event Planning | The Big Day

When the big day comes, be ready

Have a detailed schedule

In case you haven't caught on to the theme throughout this Web site, to be successful at event planning, you have to plan ahead. The same goes for the actual day of the event.

Prior to the big day, have a detailed schedule and resources ready for every aspect of the event: set up schedule, sound check time, emcee outline, set times, clean up schedule--anything and everything. E-mail this schedule to your members the night before so everyone is clear and have a few copies at the event, too.

Have one main point person

When there are too many cooks in the kitchen, chaos ensues. Assign one person to be the event captain. All questions and issues should be fielded through this person, and the captain should be the person vested with the responsibility of delegating tasks.

Have a back up plan

It's inevitable that things will go wrong the day of your event, so be prepared. For example, if you're having an outdoor event, make sure you've booked a rain location you can easily switch to the day of.

Some things you can't prepare for, so make sure you know who to go to if things go wrong. If the event services office is closed at the time of your event, for example, but no one showed up to run your event's AV, what do you do? Find a night manager at the info desk, and he'll get AV services to come to your event.

Tips

"It's really beneficial to have any contact information that you might need easily accessible."

About

Currently, I'm president of Reitz Union Board Entertainment, which provides free entertainment to the UF community every night of the week--yeah, it's a lot of planning.

I've found the best place to seek help is from those who have done it before. All of the advice and tips provided here are from people who have planned UF events and know the trials and tribulations of the process.

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Got the whole planning thing down? Want resources for being an effective student leader at UF?